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5 Things You Can Do To Adopt A Plant-Based Nutrition and How to Lose Weight on Plant-Based Nutrition

Adopt A Plant-Based Nutrition and Lose Weight on Plant-Based Nutrition

By Adrian PraljakPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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As our society evolves, we are constantly facing the need to change our behaviors and habits to increase our health and quality of life. We are now facing climate change, food insecurity and over 40% of our population is suffering from chronic disease. One of the recent ideas put forward to improve our world and health is the plant-based nutrition.

Here are 5 things that can help you adopt a plant-based nutrition.

Eat more fruits and vegetables

Plant-based eating means that you have a large proportion of your meal that comes from plant-based food. That said, fruits and vegetables are often the number one thing that comes to mind when we think of a plant-based nutrition.

Increase your fiber intake

Fiber is lacking in the nutrition of Americans. Fiber can be found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes. Aim for food that is high in fiber such as black beans, bran cereals, or even broccoli.

Focus on plant-based protein

Try switching the protein type in your meals so that it comes from plant as opposed to animals. For example, make a salad with chickpeas instead of chicken or avocado instead of beef. Not only will this help you reduce your meat consumption, it will also help you not surpass the daily intake recommendation for protein since the average American eat twice the recommended daily intake.

Try new recipes

One of the most difficult parts about adapting to plant-based eating is to adopt new habits in the kitchen. It is strongly recommended to try new recipes as opposed to try to adapt your old recipes to a plant-based nutrition. For example, a plant-based Mac and Cheese does not have the same taste and texture as the real stuff.

Don’t be extreme

Plant-based eating can be for everyone, the main idea is not to “diet” or remove something from your nutrition but more about adding more vegetables, fruits, nuts, whole grains, and legumes. For those of you who love their steak or burgers once in a while, you don’t have to completely eliminate animal-based food. You can certainly reduce it by making more meals that are plant-based.

Now it’s time to put your learning into action. Slow and steady is a great approach to change habits. This is not a diet but a way of living so have fun with it!

In general, individuals who are on a plant-based nutrition tend to consume fewer calories than individuals who consume animal protein since most of their calories are coming from healthier options and fewer calories per weight. Not all plant-based food is healthy, here’s a few suggestions to increase your change of losing weight on a plant-based nutrition.

Eat More Fruits and Vegetables

Experts in nutrition all across the world agree that the insufficient consumption of fruits and vegetables contribute to the obesity epidemic and chronic disease related to poor nutrition, especially in our country. Plant-based eating means that you have a large proportion of your meal that comes from plant-based food. To fight weight gain, reach the recommended daily intake of 400 g of fruits and vegetable.

Reduce Your Sodium

Sodium might be considered a plant-based food but there is a strong warning to decrease our consumption so that we don’t exceed the requirements of 2300 mg of sodium consumption daily. That said, it is important to understand that plant-based food doesn’t always mean healthy food. According to some research, individuals who eat a plant-based nutrition with reduce sodium consumption (2300 mg a day) showed a reduction in blood pressure and increased weight loss.

Reduce Your Sugar

Sugar is the other plant-based food to beware of. It is recommended to stick to less than 50 g of sugar a day. We challenge you to start looking at the labels of the food you eat on a daily basis and identify the amount of sugar intake you get from those foods. Many companies hide the ingredient by using multiple names to describe the sugar added, they use at least 60 names for sugar on labels. By reducing your sugar intake, you increase your chance of losing weights and staying healthy while preventing chronic disease. Reading labels can be difficult, look for the word sugar on the nutrition label, you will be able to identify how many grams of sugar is in the product.

While thousands of research demonstrate the health benefit of consuming vegetables as a way to be healthy, many still refuse to change their nutrition to increase our quality of life. Too many people believe that exercising, medication and supplements are sufficient to maintain health. Meanwhile, experts in the field of health and wellness say that weight management is 75% nutrition and 25% exercise.

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Adrian Praljak

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